Museums and more in the Big Apple…

  September is one of the best times of the year for groups to visit the Big Apple.  The newly renovated mall of vaulted elm trees in Central Park invites you to explore its 845 acres of parkland carpeted with golden brown leaves. It is the perfect canvas for the colors of autumn in all their glory. The park has several lakes, a skating rink, a miniature golf course, tennis courts, softball fields, a swimming pool, playgrounds, and even a carousel. At Tavern on the Green, you can enjoy a drink at the 40-foot-long bar or have a cocktail on its terrace garden overlooking the park, while you mull over the fact that the tavern was once home to flock of sheep and its shepherd. If you associate New York with only concrete and glass, this green, wooded park is designed to make you think again.

Unlike New Yorkers, you can take your own time sampling the cornucopia of culture the city has to offer.  It boasts over a hundred museums including such well-known ones as the Guggenheim and the American Folk Art Museum. At any given time there are any number of exhibitions going on in NYC and this is certainly another one of the city’s charms.

Across the road from Central Park is the world-renowned Met or Metropolitan Museum of Art. Dating back to 1872, the Met houses over 2 million works of art. It devotes an upcoming exhibit to a noted art dealer and patron of the arts in “Cezanne to Picass Ambroise Vollard, Patron of the Avant-Garde,” from Sept. 14 to Jan. 7. Also at the Met is “Set in Stone: The Face in Medieval Sculpture” from Sept. 26 to Feb. 18 and a contemporary exhibit, “New Orleans after the Flood: Photographs by Robert Polidori” from Sept. 19 to Dec. 10. 

A ground-breaking exhibition is on at the Whitney Museum of American Arts from Sept. 28 to Jan. 28. “Picasso and American Art” explores the impact of Picasso’s work and the role that Picasso played in the development of American art during the 20th century. In addition to works by Picasso, the exhibition looks at the work of a diverse group of American artists, including Jackson Pollock, Stuart Davis, Jasper Johns and Andy Warhol.

The International Center of Photography hosts a major exhibition from Sept. 14 to Jan. 7. “Ectopia: The Second ICP Triennial of Photography and Video” looks at artists’ responses to global environmental change. 

Through Sept. 17 in sites throughout the city, “Celebrate Mexico Now,” a festival of contemporary Mexican art and culture, returns for the third consecutive year. 

The Gustav Klimt painting “Adele Bloch to Bauer I,” recently purchased for a record price of $135 million, has drawn huge crowds to the Neue Galerie, but there’s much more to see at the museum.

Once you are done with Central Park and museum hopping there’s a whole lot more left to sample – the cuisine for starters. The city is a gastronomic hub that offers something to suit every palate. Head for Chinatown or one of the many restaurants and bars in Greenwich Village. The streets of  Soho in Lower Manhattan are lined with restaurants, galleries, and shops that are fun to browse at. Stroll through the financial district before heading for Battery Park. From the tip of Manhattan you can see New York harbor, with the Statue of Liberty grandly presiding over it, stretch into the horizon. Take a ferry to Liberty Island and check out the  Ellis Island Immigration Museum on Ellis Island on the way back.

The Staten Island Ferry that gives you a majestic view of New York Harbor, Lower Manhattan, the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. You’ll see the skyscrapers and bridges of Lower Manhattan receding as you pull away and coming into focus again as you return.

Other fun things to do in NYC

Rockefeller Center at Times Square is set to open its Top of the Rock observatory on November 1. The observatory which was closed in 1986 occupies all of six floors and offers a superb 360° view of NYC’s landmarks. Then drop in at NBC, located at Rockefeller Center. It has a tour that gives you a behind-the-scenes peek at what goes into producing a television show. You can club it with a visit to Radio City Hall which is one of the city’s venerable landmarks or be part of a studio audience. As for theater buffs:  you have come home. Broadway tickets are available for reasonable prices if you know where to go. Times Square has a ticket booth where you can buy tickets on the day of the show for discounts of up to 50 %.

 By Chitra Mogul